Are candidates dropping out a good thing for us?

[ClayTrainor]

It's looking like it's dropout time for some of the candidates on the republican side. Hunter started it off, followed by thompson and soon to be either huck or giuliani.

It will be down to a 3 man race

for a brokered convention we basically just dont want a candidate to get the majority of votes...

the less candidates there are the less likely there is the be a brokered convention?

am i right, or am i mistaken?

 

[jake]

yes, absolutely

 

[Joe3113]

I think Fred dropping out does more good than bad.

I know this aint gonna happen but I'd like Hucks to drop before ghouls.

 

[hueylong]

yes and no. yes, because we're still in it. no, because there are fewer candidates to split the pro-war vote.

we'll just have to see how it plays out.

 

[Shii]

Thompson was good-- liberty lovers will come to our side. Giuliani would be bad-- liberty haters would join Romney and make it harder for us.

 

[LandonCook]

ghouls needs to stay in the whole thing.

 

[rp08orbust]

I'm worried about McCain getting too much momentum from a Florida win and sewing up the nomination. As much as I hate the Ghoul, I think we need him to win Florida to muddy up the race and maximize the chances of a brokered convention.

 

[Joe3113]

I'm worried about McCain getting too much momentum from a Florida win and sewing up the nomination. As much as I hate the Ghoul, I think we need him to win Florida to muddy up the race and maximize the chances of a brokered convention.

Problem with that is, it will be an excuse to leave Ron out of debates. I think it is better if McCain or Romney wins.

 

[Silverback]

We also need to win five states if a brokered convention is going to lead to a RP nomination, so it's a bit of a balancing act.

I think recent events, Hunter and especially Thompson dropping out, Huck falling apart and running out of money, a strong showing in NV and now the strong possibility of a win in LA, are good for our chances.

Helps clarify the issue.

Coming out of FL it's going to be obvious there's just McCain, Romney, and Ron that are still viable, assuming of course that it's one of them that win. That presents us with an opportunity to make significant progress on delegates on Feb. 5 and beyond. People will be much more receptive once the actual choice is before them, very few people really like the RINOs.

I'm seeing grundging support for the first time today, usually RP supporters are excited, 100% sure of their support, today all of a sudden there's a big pool of Fred supporters out there saying they'll vote for Paul, either as the lesser evil from their (pro-war) perspective or even just to give the party the finger for rejecting their guy, and I expect even more of that to happen when Huck folds up, in the evangelical community and also the pro-2nd amendment guys.

It isn't over yet, that's for sure.

 

[Nash]

At this point we really don't want anyone to drop out except maybe Huckabee so we can corner the evangelical vote and 2nd amendment vote.

We want ghouls to win Florida for sure to temper McCain's progress and we want Romney, McCain and Ghouls to keep splitting up the delegates while we scrape away as much as we can.

We aren't going to win enough states to broker the convention for RP, but in a brokered convention RP gets input on who the candidate might be and the more delegates he has the more influence. It doesn't necessarily need to be anyone running now.

We could use RP delegates to nominate Sanford for example.

 

[dkim68]

I'd like Giuliani to take delegates away from Romney in Florida. I would like Huck and McCain to drop out soon. And I would love for Romney to use up all his cash before Spring.

We really need to turn people off to Hillary, McCain and Romney.

A Paul / Obama showdown in November would be ideal.

 

[bc2208]

We also need to win five states if a brokered convention is going to lead to a RP nomination, so it's a bit of a balancing act.

Why five?

 

[Gustogus]

Why five?

RNC Rules, for a candidate to be nominated for he must have won 5 states (at least thats the way I understand it.

I think 3 other candidates + Paul would be enough to force a brokered convention.

 

[ronpaulblogsdotcom]

I'd like Giuliani to take delegates away from Romney in Florida. I would like Huck and McCain to drop out soon. And I would love for Romney to use up all his cash before Spring.

We really need to turn people off to Hillary, McCain and Romney.

A Paul / Obama showdown in November would be ideal.

I think Clinton or Edwards would be easier for General Election. If Obama was in, all we would ever hear from the MSM would be about the 20 year old letters and that Ron Paul is older and white.

 

[Mini-Me]

I think Clinton or Edwards would be easier for General Election. If Obama was in, all we would ever hear from the MSM would be about the 20 year old letters and that Ron Paul is older and white.

Perhaps not - as soon as Paul starts talking about real issues like the war on drugs and the way it unfairly targets minorities in a one-on-one debate with Obama, people will start to look past the skin (literally). Ron Paul would seriously tear it up in a one-on-one debate with anyone.

As far as candidates dropping out...at first, I thought that the more candidates were in, the better we'd do, because the pro-war vote would be split further. However, based on our mixed results thus far, I think we really need some kind of a shake-up if we're really going to win this thing. Thompson dropping out is a good thing, and to be honest, I think that more candidates dropping out might be good as well (Huckabee and McCain would be the best two to go): If this race drops down to three candidates and people see that Ron Paul is still one of them, the "but he's unelectable!" brigade will start looking at him a whooooole lot more seriously. While the MSM will still try to ignore him, his prominence at debates will only grow with less opponents.

While a brokered convention would be great, our current results are not yet good enough to actually win it. Hopefully some dropouts will swing things more in our favor in terms of public perception and votes